


Devil's Snare

by ameliaproblems



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliaproblems/pseuds/ameliaproblems
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco is there for Neville when he needs it most. Neville returns the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Snare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vastlyunknown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vastlyunknown/gifts).



> This was inspired by [vastlyunknown](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vastlyunknown/pseuds/vastlyunknown) who made me dig deep into Harry Potter again and resurrect my love Draco/Neville.
> 
> Special thanks to [3bookworm33](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3bookworm33) for betaing everything I throw at her.

Draco Malfoy wanders the halls of Hogwarts immediately post the final battle. He doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for, but he knows he’s found it when he turns the corner and sees Neville Longbottom hunched behind what he thinks was a statue of an old hag, his shoulders shaking.

Draco isn’t known for his great empathy, so he’s not sure what propels him to walk over to Longbottom; but he does, wrapping himself around the other boy, ignoring the blood and grime that is still caked to Neville’s clothing. They don’t speak, but they both take comfort in being able to just sit and experience emotions as they come. They don’t have to be vigilant anymore. They’re safe.

Draco and Neville go their separate ways that day. But they both know their paths have taken a new direction from that moment, and will inevitably meet again.

\----

Neville sticks around Hogwarts to help with the clean-up and when the castle has completed most of its rebuilding Neville is asked to stay on as Herbology professor. Madam Sprout had decided to retire, not having the energy to bring her greenhouses back from the brink along with teaching and her duties as head of Hufflepuff. 

Neville makes the trek down to Hogsmeade at least once a week to pick up supplies, to revitalize the desiccated greenhouses, that George helps him get for wholesale from the Muggle world. 

He sees Draco sometimes, usually sitting alone in Three Broomsticks, nursing a cup of tea and surrounded by papers covered in his small, neat handwriting. The first time it happened, Neville was getting a coffee for his walk back to the castle; he stood there and watched Draco write until he looked up. 

His cheeks bloomed a deep red blush and he quickly went back to writing, feigning great interest in whatever it was he was working on. Neville stood there for another minute, making eye contact with Draco every time he peeked up to see if Neville was still there. He finally took pity on the other man and went on his way.

Neville asked around and found out that Draco has been living at the inn above The Three Broomsticks, not able to bring himself to go home to his ruined estate and to face his ruined life. Neville has read the papers though; the Malfoy name is in shambles and their once vast fortune is dwindling to reparations.

\----

Neville starts a tab in Draco’s name for the tea and the little biscuits that he can’t resist. He remembers Draco’s solid presence during the aftermath of the battle, how they shattered and reformed together, stuffed behind a destroyed statue.  
The only stipulation is that Madam Rosmerta not tell Draco it was him. But Neville forgets just how ‘persuasive’ Draco can be, and how much he intimidates Dennis Creevey, who took over the night shift at Three Broomstick’s from Madam Rosmerta. 

One snowy night Neville wakes to pounding on his small door, the hinges rattling in desperation. He opens it, the door whining in relief, to a red-cheeked, shiny-nosed Draco, who launches into a rant about not needing anyone’s charity, “especially not yours, Longbottom.” 

Neville just steps into the warmth of his cottage, silently waiting for Draco to come in out of the frigid night air. He shouts himself out to a silent Neville who just listens, knowing that this isn’t about him, not really. Draco falls asleep on the couch next to Neville, his anger and fear having exhausted him, his cold pink nose tucked into Neville’s neck.

Neville doesn’t dare move, except to pull a blanket over Draco and himself and grab his lesson plan for the next week, making a few minor changes, and summoning his wand to reinvigorate the fire. He mostly just watches Draco sleep.

\----

The next morning in the haze of warm, sleepy, softness Draco quietly admits that he doesn’t have enough money to continue to stay at the inn, but that he can’t go home. Neville pulls him in tighter, sharing his body heat and strength. They sit like that for minutes, or maybe hours, neither of them speaking, an echo of their last encounter.

Neville sighs, sometime later, and offers to work something out, volunteering his home as a temporary stay for Draco. Draco, of course, acts out the part of disdain and grudging acceptance, but they both know Draco isn’t going to leave; Neville’s cottage is where he belongs.

His stuff is moved out of the room at Three Broomsticks. Everyone in the pub stops talking as Neville trails in and out after him, doing most of the heavy lifting. Draco insists on carrying out his huge box of notebooks on his own, refusing to let Neville see what’s in them. But Neville perfected the art of sneaking into the cottage while Draco is scribbling away. He knows exactly which squeaky boards to avoid as he tiptoes behind Draco to catch a look at his work.

What he sees astounds him. Draco is writing a gut wrenching memoir about his childhood. Every gruesome detail of his life during and before the war. How much he regrets they way he was in school. How much he wishes his father loved him even a fraction as much as his mother did. And how much he wishes his mother showed her love differently, and the guilt he feels for wanting that, knowing she did what she could to protect him.

The sentences he glimpses from over Draco’s shoulder are heartbreaking, every part of him is laid bare in painstakingly precise handwriting. Draco has to know he’s there, can probably feel Neville breathing down his neck, but he never turns around, and he never moves to face the door while he writes. That’s how Neville knows this is love. 

\----

Draco is livid when Neville tries to convince him to submit a portion of his memoir to Witch Weekly, now run by Luna Lovegood, for the retrospective issue on the demise of the Dark Lord. He says the magazine feature will lead to more lucrative offers. That people will be knocking down the gates of Hogwarts for more.

Draco rages at Neville, threatening to burn all the pages he’s poured his heart out onto if Neville so much as thinks about touching his work. When he dives for the latest notebook, intending to fling it into the hearth, Neville grabs his wrists with one hand, tucking Draco’s head under his chin with the other, and settles him with whispered reassurances. 

Neither of them had come from affectionate families. The Pureblood tradition of children being seen and not heard was alive and well in both of their homes. So the physical comfort was new to both of them, but it seemed right, so they didn’t question it.

Neville had stumbled into the role of protector and never left; he was the constant steadying force in Draco’s life. Neville took care of him like he did his plants, providing the requisite shelter, care, and attention. 

He took pride in helping his once sworn enemy, the boy he had been terrified of when he was young; not because he revelled in Draco’s neediness, but because he recognized the facade that Draco had kept up over the years. Neville just wanted to fill the void that was sucking Draco in, to pull him back from the event horizon.

\----

They were able to keep their living arrangements a secret for a few weeks, both pretending that Draco was going to leave soon, and there would be nothing to tell. 

Headmistress McGonagall doesn’t bat an eyelash when she knocks on Neville’s door one morning and a half-awake Draco answers the door. She only smiles knowingly and says that only faculty and students are allowed to reside on Hogwarts grounds.

She does, however, offer him a position in the library, cataloguing what’s left of the old library and replacing the books lost in the fire that blazed through most of the shelves. He also volunteers to tutor students, and help them with the scrolls they have to write weekly for classes.

When he first starts poking around the library he feels every pair of eyes that stares at him from the entrance to the library. They all know him from when they were younger and he was still in school, perpetuating his reign of spoiled brattiness; or they heard the stories from older siblings and relatives. 

But as time goes on the students all pretend they don’t recognize his last name because he’s so nice and always has a spare lemon drop in his pocket, a habit he picked up in memory of Dumbledore and the first time he ever made a decision for himself.

The habit started out as a comfort for himself, but word got out after he began offering them to sniffling first years who were homesick, or students who were stressed about exams and OWLs. 

\----

Draco’s quiet shuffle became recognizable throughout the castle, bringing carts of books from classroom to classroom for different lessons, or asking Professors if they had a certain book in their possession, or knew the whereabouts of this book or that.

He would make a note of the answer in his small notebook that carried the master list of every book in the library, and the ones he needed to obtain, and then slip out of the room as quietly as he came.

The rumors swirled about Mr. Malfoy and Professor Longbottom. During every meal Professor Longbottom would walk to the doors of the Great Hall a few minutes late, giving Mr. Malfoy time to get there from the library so he wouldn’t have to walk into the fray alone. 

If Draco wasn’t there when Neville arrived he would turn down the corridor towards the library and be back a short time later, with Draco in tow. The students would swear they could hear him muttering as he walked up to the head table about healthy eating habits, and promises made but not kept.

All of the younger students thought it was so romantic, but a little strange, that shy and sweet Mr. Malfoy was being wooed by the rough and tumble Herbology professor with a penchant for poisonous plants. The older students knew better, but they also knew that if anyone could coax a poisonous plant into withdrawing it’s thorns, it was Professor Longbottom.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Tumblr](http://ameliaproblems.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
